





AWEXATIO.X OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



SPEECH 



HON. DANIEL W. MILLS 



OF ILLINOIS. 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



WlvnXKSDAV, Juxic 15, 1S9S. 



■^v A S H I X o r O .N'. 



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68458 



SPEEOU 

OF • . 

HON. DANIEL W. MILLS. 



On the joint resolution (H. Ros. 259) to provirto for annexing the Ilawaiian 
Islands to the United States. 

Mr. MILLS said: 

Mr. Speaker: I represent in part one of the p^reatest commer- 
cial and manufacturing cities of the ■world. 1 do not intend to go 
deeply into the subject of political economy nor to discuss fully the 
so-called doctrines of the early fathers. These arguments have 
been made and most completely answered, making it necessary for 
me, in the fulfillment of the duty I owe my constituents, to only 
refer to the great benefit the commercial interests of this country 
would receive bj' the annexation of Hawaii. 

I have never been able to understand, Mr. Speaker, why every 

movement which is destined to bring other countries within the 

sphere of our commercial influence should be characterized as a 

D departure from the principles of government laid down by the 

~s fathers of the Republic. One would be led to suppose that these 

early fathers, emulating the example of the Chinese, had builded 

^ a wall around this country high and wide and strong. When a 

commercial arrangement is proposed by which we would secure 

the trade of South American countries, we are told that we should 

enter into no entangling alliances. When we would offset the 

British possession of the Suez Canal and the French ownership of 

the Panama Canal, horrible results are pictured that come out of 

this supposed departure from the teachings of the early fathers. * 

I believe I am safe in saying that nearly every civilized nation 
has departments of commerce and manufactures, upon which the 
government expends a large amount of money in order to extend 
its trade. France, Germany, and Gx'eat Britain never hesitate at 
any expenditure in order to establish profitable trade relations 
with nations of either the Eastern or the Western Hemisphere. 

That the early fathers of the Republic were neither the fools nor 
the hermits they had been pictured is shown conclusively by the 
fact that this nation in its infancy astonished the world by the ex- 
pansion of its foreign trade. American-made shiiis swung the Stars 
and Stripes to the breeze and floated the Union Jack in every port 
known to commerce. Over 80 per cent of the foreign trade of this 
country was then carried upon American bottoms; to-day only 
about 10 per cent of our trade is so carried. 

I represent a large commercial district, and the experiences of 
the people in that district are not unlike tliose of the commer- 
cial interests in other sections of the country. It has not been 
a great while since the business men of Chicago, St. Louis, 
and Cincinnati formed commercial organizations and sent travel- 
»499 3 



ing representatives to South America and the Orient. They found 
those people all anxious to buy goods in the United States; but 
they also found that the merchants of the United States could not 
profitably compete with those of Great Britain on account of the 
advantages given the English jobbers and manufacturers by rea- 
son of the treaties made Ijy their Clovernment. 

China, Japan, Australia, and all of the oriental lands are geo- 
graphically closer to the United States than to Great Britain, but 
commercially they are at a much greater distance. The commer- 
cial distance for nonperishable goods is not a question of miles, 
but of cost of transportation. The price of coal in the United 
States is a little less than the price of coal in England or France, 
while the price of coal in the Pacific islands ranges from §10 to 
$1.") a ton. England, France, and Germany own coaling stations 
at easy steaming distance from each other all the way from Europe 
to Asiatic shores. Tlie steamship companies keep supplies of coal 
on hand at these stations, and they obtain their coal at actual 
cost, vrith only the actual cost of transportation added. 

On the other hand, the United States having no coaling station 
between the Pacific coast and Japan, and having a long land haul 
for coal from the Eastern fields to the Pacific coast, labors under a 
very great disadvantage. Our steamship companies must pay 
double the price for coal that it costs the English and French com- 
panies. The difference in the coal alone would make a fine profit 
on the transportation. The distance is too great for an American 
vessel to be supplied with sufficient coal to carry it to Japan or 
China without replenishing the bunkers. 

The result can easily be seen by a study of our official reports 
on commercial relations. The port of Shanghai is naturally tribu- 
tary to the Pacific coast, and yet the trade of Shanghai has grown 
with Great Britain from $230,000,000 in 1894 to $320,000,000 in 
1897. It fell with the United States during the same period from 
§700,000,000 to $300,000,000. The trade of New South Wales with 
the United States has fallen from §400,000,000 to $100,000,000. 
The United States opened up Japan to the world, and now France, 
Great Britain, and Germany each sell her more goods than we do. 

In the miitation of events arising out of circumstances which 
the United States could not control there has been offered to iis 
without the expenditure of a dollar the complete control of the 
Pacific Ocean. We have been compelled by the fortunes of war 
to seize the Philippine Islands, and the Carolines, belonging to 
the same iiower, will unquestionably fall into oiir hands. The 
Hawaiian group has been offered us as a gift. If we accept the 
good that Providence seeks to bestow upon us, we own the Ha- 
waiian Islands, 2,100 miles from San Francisco; we own the Car- 
olines, 2,.'3O0miles from Hawaii; weown the Philippines, l,900niile3 
from the Carolines and but 900 miles from Hongkong. We have 
commercial stations at easy steaming distance from each other, 
extending entirely across the Pacific Ocean. If the Government, 
in connection with Nicaragua and Costa Rica, should build the 
Nicaraguan Canal, the coal for American ships would cost very 
much less than it now costs to ship to Great Britain, France, and 
Germany. 

The Republican party, under the beneficent influences of the 
policy of in'otection to American manufactures, has built up oiir 
industrial interests until they excite the envy and the admiration 
Of the entire world. But so far not a dollar has been expended, 



not a iiipasure tried for tlie extension of commerce or the upbuikl- 
ins? of the commercial interests. We have expended hundreds of 
millions on the rivers of the South and West in order that the 
farmers might have cheap transportation for their products. Tho 
commercial interests have been incidentally benefited by the bet- 
terment of the condition of the masses of the people. But directly 
we have done nothing to foster and protect the vast commercial 
interests of this country. 

In protecting the laboring men against competition with the 
pauper labor of Europe we have done well; in protecting tlie 
farmer against ruinous transportation charges we have also done 
well. Xow come the great commercial interests and demand at 
our hands that we accept a gift that has been freely offered us in 
order that they may compete with the commercial houses of the 
Old World. What can we say to these people if we refuse? Shall 
we tell them that the policy of this Government is to contract and 
not to expand our trade? Shall we tell these people that the 
United States Government is the only civilized nation on earth 
that has no regard to her commercial interests? 

We have been called a nation of traders, a nation of shop- \ 

keepers, and yet it has been purely American pluck and enterprise VA 

that have caused our trade to grow into anything like large pro- * 

portions. We have no department of Government taking care of 
the interests of our commercial men. We maintain no national 
commercial clubs. We pay no commercial bounties. Great Brit- 
ain, France, and Germany have all these features, and our com- 
mercial interests suffer abroad not so much from competition with 
foreign firms as from competition with foreign governments. 

We threw away our opportunity to control the trade of Central 
and South America; and in the name of the great commercial 
interests which I have the honor in part to i-epresent I protest 
against allowing this golden opportunity to escape for us to secure 
Avithout cost the vast commerce of the Pacific islands and the 
Orient. 

We are told by the Navy Department, we are told by the naval 
experts, and for once in the history of the United States the line 
and the staff of the Navy have agreed, that the Hawaiian Islands 
are absolutely necessary for the pi-otection of onr Pacific coast. 
I care nothing for finespun arguments on the theory of political 
economy. I find that every writer on the law of nations or the 
law of political economy agrees that with nations, as with indi- 
viduals, self-preservation is the first law of nature. I find that 
the law of self-preservation rises superior to all other laws. We 
are told by every man who knows that this supreme law abso- 
lutely declares that we take possession of these islands. 

So greatly convinced of this are our military and naval boards 
of strategy, tho President, who is Commander in Chief of the 
Army and Navy, and the General in charge of the Army that they 
are reported to have agreed that in case this legislation is not en- 
acted, it will be absolutely necessary to take military charge of the 
Hawaiian Islands in order to protect our Pacific coast. In oppo- 
sition to the statement that the law of self-preservation requires 
the possession of these islands we have only the theories of mem- 
bers of the House who have made no special study of naval and 
military affairs. This is not a time in the history of the liuited 
States when we can put aside necessity to discuss the theories of 
policy. 



6 

It is a time wlieu we must listen to those whom we have edu- 
cated at great expense at Annapolis and who have had actual 
experience in naval matters, and as to those questions which in- 
volve naval affairs we mnst to a great extent trust to their judg- 
ment. They say. not that we need these islands, but that we 
reouire them; we reqnire them just as much, in their judgment, 
as we do the harbor of Santiago. When the military necessities 
of the war required that they bombard Santiago, they did not ask 
Congress for permission, but commenced the bombardment. 
While the possession of Hawaii is just as important, in their judg- 
ment, a little more time is allowable, and Congress therefore 
passes upon the qirestion of a permanent occupation. But if Con- 
gress should defeat this resolution, the Navy otticers would have 
the right to take possession of Hawaii as a military necessity. 

There is another feature of this question which I will refer to 
very briefly. In considering the matter of annexing an outlying 
dependency, it is important to look to the economic conditions of 
the countries about to be annexed. Is that country capable of 
becoming a part of a republic? What are its products, and what 
effect would it have upon the products we already raise? What 
are the habits of the people? 

The fact that these people are capable of governing themselves 
is shown by their having done so for four years under a provi- 
sional form of government. They have sufficiently demonstrated 
their capabilities in that direction. Their revenues equal their 
expenditures, they have maintained their public credit unimpaired, 
and have developed rapidly in wealth and population. Their cap- 
ital city, Honolulu, is well paved, well lighted, supplied with an 
excellent car service, has a most satisfactory common-school sys- 
tem, and will compare favorably with any city of the same popu- 
lation in the United States, They have telegraph, telephone, and 
railroad service throughout the island, and maintain a postal 
savings-bank system, the deposits of which prove that the masses 
of the people are thrifty, industrious, and economical. The rec- 
ords of the courts show that in morality the people will compare 
favorably v.nth those of the United States. 

Now we come to the products. They raise no wheat, practi- 
cally no corn, oats, rye, or barley. In the cereals they do not 
come into competition with the agriculture of the United States. 
They have vast areas of land adapted to the raising of sugar. 
The product of the United States in sugar lacks $100,000,0UU an- 
nually of being sufficient to supply the wants of our own people. 
Therefore, the addition of a large area of sugar-producing land 
can not be otherwise than beneficial. They raise a high grade of 
coffee. Our Department of Agriculture has expended large sums 
of money in vain to try to introduce the coffee plant into this 
country. We have no coffee lands, and the addition of coffee 
lands could not be otherwise than beneficial. They raise a great 
deal of rice. In some of our Southern districts we produce a con- 
siderable (luantity of rice, but we have never yet succeeded in 
raising as much as we could use, and consequently the addition 
of rice lands Avould be very acceptable. They raise bananas, and 
the United States imports large quantities of bananas. 

For many years we have been experimenting with different 
kinds of silkworm, in order to produce native silk. In Louisiana 
these experiments have been partially successful. The silk in- 
dustry has never been developed in Hawaii, but those who have 
ai99 



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made a study of the subject are very positive in their belief that 
the worms would thrive as well in those islands as in China and 
Japan. If they are right, it would add to the industries of this 
country one of the greatest lines of manufacture that could 1)e 
established here. 

There is not a line of industry, agricultural or industrial, in 
which the Hawaiian Islands come into competition with the 
Ijinted States. Everything that we receive through the annex- 
ation of Hawaii is an addition to our resources. Raising our own 
sugar, our own coffee, and onr own rice, with a cliinafe similar 
to that of many of the Oriental countries, a location adapted to 
the produce and manufacture of those articles which the people 
across the Pacific require, we would be in a peculiarly happy con- 
dition because we would be enabled to more tlioroughlv satisfy 
their wants than any other nation on earth. 

Mr. Speaker, I believe in giving due deference to the policies 
which have been laid down for our guidance by the illustrious 
statesmen of the past. I believe in being verv careful not to en- 
croach upon the provisions of the Federal Constitution. But, Mr. 
Speaker, no statesman of the past ever said or intimated that our 
territory should not be extended where, in the judgment of our 
naval and military officers, the law of self-prtservation required 
its extension. The Constitution is silent upon the subject, e^ept 
that it gives Congress the power to create new States. 

The United States Supreme Court, construing that part of the 
Constitution, justified the extension of territory beyond that 
owned by the United States when the Constitution was adopted 
If we could constitutionally purchase the province of Louisiana 
California, Nevada, and New Mexico, and Alaska, which is not 
contiguous to the main body of the United States, and annex 
Texas, there is no limitation, so far as the Constitution is con- 
cerned, upon the judgment of Congress, and we can take posses- 
sion of any territory that the development of time may render 
necessaiy to the development of the United States. 

3491) 



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